


we stand unbowed before their armour

by stardustandfantasies



Category: Padz and Friends (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Revolution, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 17:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15586899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandfantasies/pseuds/stardustandfantasies
Summary: everything and nothing is fair in war and love.daniel/dania and gama/ganes, revolution au.





	we stand unbowed before their armour

**Author's Note:**

> this is very old; i wrote it in december 2014, hence the OOC-ness. everything is in lower case, because it is those whom those in power think are the lowest in society who actually have the greatest power: the ordinary people, the working class, the proletariat. fex urbis lex orbis. to hell with capitalism! (nah jk, i’m just being hipster af.)
> 
> disclaimer: padzandfriends belong to mimin; the title was from  _the internationale_ ; the opening paragraph is a homage (or maybe a disgrace, rather) to the opening lines of a tale of two cities by charles dickens.

it is the worst of times, the age of foolishness, the epoch of incredulity, the season of darkness, the winter of despair. everyone has nothing before them and each new day brings to the people nothing but the thought  _today i am one day closer to my death_ ; people ask for justice but the king’s forces are quick to shut them up forever.

yet the hunger for freedom is greater than the thirst for life, because better is to die than to live under the slavery of a tyrant—

—and that is how this starts, just as every revolution does.

* * *

there are numerous pockets of resistance movements scattered across the country, communicating with one another via a network of intelligence working under dire risks of inhumane torture and brutal execution by the royal troops.

there is one group that gathers in an inconspicuous tavern next to her flat, consisting of students. they talk of big ideas like  _ _liberty__ and  _ _equality__ and  _ _universal brotherhood__  and plan an upcoming uprising. when they don’t, they laugh and drink and make merry a lot (as much as they can, with what they have. the world is still a cruel place but they can always find something to cherish).

dania knows because she has been sneaking into their meetings. not particularly because she is interested in the revolution—although she too, like all the people, is tired of poverty and misery—but mainly because the leader of the group is a young man with golden hair and a golden smile that illuminates the entire dark and dingy tavern. the kind of smile that fills people with good spirit and hope for a better tomorrow, where liberty and equality and universal brotherhood are not utopian ideals or big empty words, but a reality they live and breathe in—  


(—even though the rebels are losing more and more power whilst the royal army gaining more and more; even though winter is approaching and it will further hinder their movements and it will probably also be the winter of their revolution; even though they have been hearing about murders and tortures and betrayals and everything that is not good news for them—)

—a smile she can never stop thinking of.

(especially not after they kiss and daniel laughs and beams even brighter than the sun.)

* * *

ganes is the second-in-command in the group. years of living and striving and surviving the slums and the streets have made him a stern sceptic, the antithesis who connects their leader to reality (always far too optimistic for his own good, daniel is).

gama comes from a family with aristocratic lineage, who decides to help with the revolution after getting sick of pampered life and snobbishness and all that nobility nonsense. he now acts as a spy for the rebels, making full use of his access to the two worlds: the monarchists and the republicans.

 _ _so he says,__ ganes thinks. he is not the type of person ganes would normally want to get friendly with (not that there are many at the first place); there is something about him that makes ganes uncomfortable.

(maybe it’s because he is nice. almost too nice, too gentle. and he is warm, not the daniel kind of warm, but a toned down, quiet kind of warm that makes people let down their guards around him and trust him with their secrets.

maybe it’s because one night gama pins him to the wall and kisses him and the next thing he remembers is that he finds himself underneath the sheets, their legs tangling.

maybe it’s because he has disappeared for weeks without saying anything and ganes’ stomach churns every time he thinks of the worst of possibilities: his identity is exposed, he is dead, or worse, the government troops capture and torture him to get him to reveal their hideout.

no, ganes doesn’t think of gama’s absence, of the empty chair where he would sit when they gather in the tavern and of the empty space in ganes’ heart which ganes only knows exists after his disappearance.)

* * *

one day darien enters the hideout, head bowed in grief, not his usual cheerful self.

immediately they know that some of their comrades have been either silenced by gunshots and bayonets or tortured in prison. they wait for him to reveal who have fallen. quietly. things like this happens every now and then (and they never get used to it still.

some things are like that—you will never get used to them and they will always hurt you).

( _ _please don’t let it be gama,__  ganes finds himself silently praying to the god who pays heed to neither their pleas nor their cries, the god in whom he has for long already stopped believing.)

darien reads a litany of names, a roll call of their fallen friends.

(his lips continue to mouth  _ _no, not him,__ ganes prays still.)

“dana. haris. rengganis—”

the list grows longer and longer, the silence more and more deafening.

(it’s no longer a prayer but just not  _ _him not him not him not__ repeated like a mantra. he is not one to engage in wishful thinking but oh how now he wishes it really could.)

“—and gama.”

no one wonders whether those people died, or worse, had their execution delayed for the king’s troops to torture them and make them reveal secrets about the revolutionaries, forcing them to betray their own friends and sometimes watch their friends die before they go through the same ending.

no one ever does. no one ever wants to.

that night, as they always do, they drink a toast for all their friends who have fallen, swearing a revenge for them.

ganes doesn’t feel like toasting, but he drinks anyway to make him forget.

* * *

they debate whether to move and find another place. someone, anyone, might have confessed their hideout under torture (they loathe to even think about being betrayed by those they call friends, but everything and nothing is fair in war), but there is almost no safe place left either; there aren’t many of them left now.

but the tavern door breaks open and it’s gama. everyone cheers and rushes to welcome him with a pat on the back.

ganes is the last one to greet him. he has to convince himself it’s really gama and it really is. he wants to shout  _ _where have you been__ and _ _i was worried you bastard__ and—

gama wasn’t alone.

a red cloud march closer and closer and closer until there is red everywhere—red the colour of the royal soldiers’ uniform, red the colour of blood, red the colour of destruction and death and doom.)

* * *

dania wakes up to the sound of clash and ambush.

she feels a pang in her heart and she intuitively knows that her friends ( _ _friends__ she now call them) have perished, even though she’s not there to see it. she just knows.

when she reaches the tavern, the stench of blood makes her nauseous but she doesn’t stop running past dismembered bodies and red puddles and empty chairs towards the last of the rebels to stand, by the small window at the end of the room, back to the soldiers and face to the sky: a young man with a golden smile she cannot forget.

the royal soldiers did not lower their arms, yet for her they made way; what can a lone woman do anyway?

* * *

daniel gazes at the rising sun far away in the horizon.

another day of life under the iron claws of a vile monarch.

another day of suffering.

another day, but one that he and his friends will never see.

(he is optimistic—far too optimistic for his own good, ganes would always say—but now even __he__ can’t see a tomorrow.

after all, the people for whom he continues to believe in a tomorrow have ceased; maybe it is time for his optimism to cease as well.)

a smaller hand took his. he glances to see who it is and is surprised to find her face, but he smiles at her and she smiles at him. her hand feels comfortable wrapped by his, as if finding a place it belongs to.

(if this were a fairy tale they would kiss and perhaps by some  _ _deus ex machina__  escape and even survive the revolution and live happily ever after when justice once again prevails in the nation they love and fight and sacrifice for.

but this is real life and of course they know that there is no tomorrow for them.)

* * *

the soldiers are ready to fire, but they hesitate.

(yes, they are pawns, efficient killing machines at the king’s disposal, but deep down they are still human beings with hearts—hearts big and proud and full of love of their country, both different and the same as the revolutionaries—whether they realise it or not.

she realises this and wonders: were circumstances different, might they be comrades instead of enemies?

perhaps in their next lifetime, they will be friends.

but not in this one.)

so she orders, her voice quiet yet unwavering:

“finish us in one blow.”

* * *

daniel squeezes dania’s hand a tad tighter; she returns the gesture.

“i can’t ask for a better end,” he said, because what greater honour is there than dying for everything and everyone— _ _the__ one—you love and fight for?

* * *

the soldiers fire.

(the last thing she remembers is the golden smile she can never forget.)


End file.
